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Description

In 2012, Australia introduced pioneering plain packaging of tobacco products as part of its obligations under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. After a challenge by a number of tobacco companies, the High Court of Australia upheld the constitutional validity of Australia’s regime by a majority of six to one. In addition to matters about constitutional law, intellectual property, public health, the case raised larger questions about law, and ethics, particularly within the legal profession. In response to Australia’s public health initiative, five countries have challenged Australia’s plain packaging of tobacco products in the World Trade Organization, alleging that there was a breach of the TRIPS Agreement, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, and GATT. There has also been an action brought by Philip Morris against Australia’s plain packaging of tobacco products under an investor-state dispute settlement regime in an investment agreement between Hong Kong and Australia. There has also been much controversy over the question of tobacco control during the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Speakers:

Professor Christine Parker of Monash University has conducted socio-legal research on business responses to legal regulation and social responsibilities, the impact of regulatory enforcement on business, internal corporate responsibility systems, lawyers' ethics and the regulation of lawyers. She is now working on the politics, ethics and regulation of food. She teaches legal ethics and regulatory enforcement and compliance. Professor Parker has held a number of major academic research grants in her areas of research and also does research work and provides policy advice on a consultancy basis for government and regulatory agencies.

Professor Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law in the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is a leader of the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law research program, and a member of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (QUT DMRC) the QUT Australian Centre for Health Law Research (QUT ACHLR), and the QUT International Law and Global Governance Research Program. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, and Indigenous Intellectual Property. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement. His work is archived at SSRN Abstracts and Bepress Selected Works.

Rebecca Lowe is the Executive Manager, Public Health at the Cancer Council Queensland and has worked in the field of public health since 1995. Over years of work with CCQ, Rebecca has developed expertise in cancer control initiatives and an extensive understanding of issues spanning tobacco control, diet and nutrition, physical activity, skin cancer prevention, cancer screening and early detection and the evidence guiding programs in this area. Currently Rebecca is a member of the Cancer Council Australia Public Health Committee, the Cancer Screening sub-Committee, and the National Skin Cancer Committee.